Authors: Elizabeth Collison
Still, while we're inept, it is true, we are most of us not unaware.
Frankly, we say, we have no idea why Steinem hired us. Unless of course it's because we all interview well, which personally I believe is the reason. The editors especially are good talkers, they would easily have made a good first impression with a few flashy pedagogical phrases, an arcane reference to morphemes here and there. They would have only had to bone up the night before. And I in my interview just had to tell a few lively stories from art school, vaguely related to ink and type, which I could see Steinem wasn't much following but seemed nevertheless to enjoy.
Well who knows really why Steinem took us all on? But hire us he did and we are thankful. It is why we all come in to work every weekday and do whatever we can. Which unfortunately, it turns out, is not much.
This is not, of course, how we began. At the start we all meant to succeed, and our entire first year at the Project remained more or less on track. We wrote up our outlines, projections. We researched, took notes, set goals, then met daily to plan. And in all these activities and meetings, as in our first interviews, our collective forte as extremely good talkers convinced Steinem that all would be well.
But then at the Project, in this, our second year, with production deadlines looming, we stopped all our meetings, closed our suite doors, and got down to what could be called work here. Each day the editors wrote and then the editors edited, all according to plan. After which, I marked up their stories for galleys, and the illustrators sketched out the art. But once then the layouts began to emerge, and a few of us got a look, it was immediately and also excessively clear just how abysmal all of us were.
I should add, however, not everyone at the Project is yet aware
of this. Steinem, for one. Who, due to the Personality coming on board at about the same time as our stories, has been distracted here more than usual. Steinem is not, by nature, an organized man; he is not long on managerial skills. And so, unmoored from our daily editorial meetings and also completely and deeply smitten, Steinem just let our little staff be. The shift left the editors all at wit's end and wreaked havoc on Steinem's professionalism.
For which now he compensates with optimism. That is, Steinem, who has not actually got around to reading any, believes our stories exceptional. He is also under the impression we've finished whole series of them and they are out there, pre-release, winning acclaim. He now refers to our books in every new grant. They've built extraordinary confidence in our funders, he says, and won no end of NDEA support. He just does not know what he would do without our soon to be award-winning series.
Celeste is the other not in on the secret. We thought it better to spare her. Celeste, as I've said, is the delicate one, our sensitive wood violet, our unstable faerie queen. She does not do well with negativity, and we have been unable to tell her the truth: Her Joe Trout Adventures in Science are by far the worst of our lot.
Not Joe Trout himself, that is. Celeste does quite well with characterization, and even, on some days, plot. I knowâas I've said, I have read Joe's every rambling word. But I am not an early reader. And even the gifted among these, I believe, could not possibly follow Joe's drift. Celeste in her dreamy, unfocused way makes the most simple hypotheses obscure, a fact that, were she more syntactically astute, would break her poor editor's heart. She writes each of her stories, she maintains, to spread the good science word. She's a believer, she professes, in scienceâan odd
stance for Celeste, we all agree, considering her other beliefs. But then because we cannot come to tell her the truth, that her stories just waste a child's time, they go off as they are to be typeset.
It is the same with everyone's stories, Frances's pedantic morality tales, Lola's inappropriate limericks, Sally Ann's latest Strippers and Zippers. None of our series should be published. But then, the editors shrug. What does it matter, really, they say. It's all just grant money in the end. The funds for the series are already in place, it's not like the Project depends on its sales. By going forth with their stories, regardless of worth, the editors are just doing their duty. Steinem's grants promised readers, and so the editors write them. The actual publishing is out of their hands.
It is not the most responsible stance. And I am pretty sure the editors are wrong about publishing without serious consequence. Because, I believe, if it were not for the rest of our secret, and also specifically me, we would all, to an editor, long ago have been shown the sanatorium door.
It's a thought we do not like to dwell on.
But now “Lunch!” Frances calls from the hallway. I look up from where Bones snorts with Sally Ann and offer a small silent thank god. Thank god for lunch, even for Frances. I stand and prepare to leave. But not to be rude before I bolt for the door, I ask Sally Ann would she like to come too, knowing it's a guaranteed decline.
As I have said, Sally Ann is too shy to go down to the lunchroom en masse. Too many people, Bones explains. When you enter, they all turn in their seats to stare. And then you have to go through a long line of more people just to get yourself any food. There are all those women in hairnets wanting to serve you things. Potatoes on the side, no potatoes? Oh but they're lovely fresh mashed, you sure no potatoes today? Then how about a little dessert? It's black bottom pie, the cook's favorite. Well no dessert either? It upsets Sally Ann's stomach, Bones says, which is why she just brings her lunch in a bag and the two of them eat at her desk.
So then, the rest of the editors and I take the elevator down to the basement. And today we're in luck. We have found a place by the windows, our most preferred seating, although it is not really because of the windows, it's not like we have a view. The cafeteria windows are small and high up, we are, after all, in the basement. We only try to sit here whenever we can because it puts us at a side wall. It is quieter here than out in the middle where they usually put the sick prisoners, the ambulatory ones from the sanatorium's infirmary wing. It's easy to spot them, some are still in their robes, the others wear little green booties. We're not sure why the infirmary makes them wear booties. But they are loud talkers, those prisoners, they have axes to grind, prison breaks to plot, that sort of convict business, and we sometimes cannot hear our own conversations for all of their jailhouse clamor.
The editors and I take our seats, we spread out our cafeteria dishes. And, immediately, as it generally does, the conversation turns to boyfriends.
It is Frances who starts us off. She has news, she wants to tell us about the man she was out with last night. He is a new one, she
says, someone she just met at her tennis club. And as usual, she says, she had hopes for him. The signs were all good. He first of all belonged to the club, which means he had time for tennis and could also afford the dues. In addition, she says, he was buff. And he had a magnificent tan. “A May tan,” Frances says. “Imagine.” This spring there are not yet many tans at the club, a fact Frances pointed out right off to him, right there in the club's private lounge.
She was bold, she says. It is the middle of the week, not normally a date night, but she just walked up to the bar and sat next to him. Then leaning over as though they had met before, “My god,” she said. “Where did you get that tan?”
“Tan?” he said, and looked down at his forearm. He had on a blue dress shirt with little tucks down the front, very elegant, Frances says. He had rolled the sleeves up a couple of times and “Tan?” he said, and held his arm out and stared at it. “On the courts, I guess. In the sun.” And then he turned his arm over, studied it again. “I tan easily,” he said.
Frances says well probably she should have known right then, but she didn't. Instead, she stayed at the bar and had a cigarette, then another. And eventually the fellow asked would she like to come home with him, he'd make them dinner.
“So I thought what the hell and I went,” Frances says. He served pinot noir and stir-fry, which was actually quite good, Frances says. Except then after dinner we just sat on his couch while he told me again how easily he tanned. He couldn't seem to believe it, what a great tan he had. I was sorry I'd mentioned it, so I said well yes, though it might be the blue in his shirt. Blue tends to makes people look darker than they are.
Which was a mistake too, Frances says. I should have just left it at the tan because “Well, yes,” he said, “it could be the shirt.” And then he asked would I maybe like to see his other shirts? He had over fifty, not even counting the polos.
“His tan and the fifty shirts, that's all we talked about the rest of the night.”
Lola and Frances laugh and nod their heads. They find it amusing, all those shirts. And I laugh too, mostly to show I am listening.
But in fact I am not. What I am thinking instead is how really it is not so easy having dinner on a first date. And when there's a little pause, I say, “Well that is a good story, Frances.” I smile, then add but maybe she should give the man one more chance.
Frances and Lola turn to look at me. “Excuse me,” Frances says. “Did you not just hear the part about the shirts?”
I smile again and pretend I did.
“The man is vain, Margaret,” Frances says, incredulous. “There is no future in dating a vain man. It does not matter how much money he makes or how tanned he happens to be, vanity is never a good sign. A self-involved man does not generally get over it. If you marry him, you'll never get past it too. Give it some thought, Margaret. Please.”
Frances narrows her eyes and waits for my response. She really does mean to discuss this. But I know then I cannot explain. I cannot say well but just now I was not thinking of your vain tennis friend. I was actually thinking of Ben Adams. I was just now remembering my first dinner with Ben and how it did not go all that well either. In Ben's case not because of vanity. Ben Adams is not a vain man. But he can be awkward and inexplicably sad, also
not good first-date signs. Still, I did not hold them against him. Which is, to be honest, unlike me. But oh Frances, I would like now to tell her, what a lucky break indeed.
I do not of course say any of this. I only meet her look and hold my ground. “No, Frances,” I tell her. If the man gives her a call, I think she should see him again. “You don't know, Frances,” I say. “Even a tanned man can grow on you.”
He sits tonight in the cupola, thinking. It is late again, he has come to like it here late. This high up, it is silent, the air is calm, he can see far into the night. In the dark and the quiet, he sometimes can see things more clearly.
He is thinking tonight of what he would like to tell her. Small things, things in the world he has seen. An old man on a cot, holding a duck and weeping; children rescued at dawn from a storm drain. One blue hyacinth in a glass by a window, snow falling on the other side. Miracles, the everyday.
That first dinner with Ben Adams, I thought at the time, was highly unlikely to happen. After our coffee, or whatever it was at the truck stop, despite the fact that he asked for my number, I
was pretty sure he would not call. Ben was, still and all, a married man. And it was fine with me, not hearing from him, it was fortunate in fact, that it would just pass, this first glancing blow of a date. Since, as I said, Ben is married and it was not even actually a date. No one would have to call the next day or by Tuesday the next week at the latest. And if we ran into each other at some later point, no one would need say much either, certainly not make excuses. In another few weeks, I told myself then, I just might be seeing someone new. And in six months, neither Ben nor I would remember that there'd once been this accidental coffee.
But then Ben Adams called the next morning at nine. “Dinner?” he asked. “Still on for tonight?” And “Dinner,” I said. “Right. Still on.” Just like that. And after Ben Adams hung up, well, I thought, OK. Dinner. It's just dinner, not a date.
But all that day at work, I remember, I could not stop thinking about that call. I could not stop worrying about dinner. A second shot, and so awfully soon. I was not at all sure it was something that I was up to. So I spent the morning just worrying and then trying very hard not to, then trying not to think at all. I grew busy with charts I was supposed to be inking and with fixing fin placement on Joe. Still I knew in just a few hours, I would be seeing Ben Adams again.
So this is how it began, that first dinner at Ben's. As soon as I arrived, I could see he had gone all out. Well, I have now had a number of dinners at Ben's and always he goes all out. It is just Ben's way and I got used to it, although it sometimes still caught me off guard.
Ben dressed up for our dinners, for one thing. It left him looking so vulnerable, I did not like it at first. He would shower and
when I arrived, always his hair would be wet, combed with a straight part on the side. And always he would have on his best white shirt, starched and complete with French cuffs. He would wear this shirt with blue jeans, it's true, still it was too much. Always the cuffs would get into his dinner, and Ben would end each evening largely stained. It is what happened that first dinner we had. Ben made us grilled chicken with barbecue sauce and by the time we sat down to eat, Ben's good shirt was splattered to its elbows.
I should point out here Ben Adams thinks he can cook. He cannot, as it turns out, but he can barbecue some. Chicken. Mostly he can barbecue chicken. Barbecued chicken with barbecue sauce all over it. At Ben's dinners, almost always it was the same. Ben would put two large chickens on top of his grill and then cover them in a red barbecue sauce he bought in two-quart glass jars.
“Ben,” I said, that first night when I saw the chicken filling my plate. “What is this?” And when Ben explained it was dinner, it was my half, I told him well, but it is too much. It could feed families of six, this whole chicken. “You don't have to finish it,” Ben said. “You can take the leftovers with you. I will give you a bag.”